Creating an invitation
Michaela Maginot
Invitation complete with gift box, card, and transparent envelope. For more options, please visit www.corel.com/design collection.
Concept and design
Document setup
First, we’ll use the property bar to set up the page. Choose centimeters from the Units list box. In the Paper Width and Height boxes, set the width to 63 cm and the height to 21 cm. (The Landscape icon becomes enabled, indicating that the orientation of the page has changed.)
Click the Dynamic Guides icon to enable the dynamic guidelines.
Go to Layout ` Page Setup and click the Add Page Frame button. (With the help of this frame, you can align the objects precisely to the edge of the page.)
Next, open the Object Manager (Window ` Dockers ` Object Manager). There, you’ll see Layer 1 under the Page 1 category. This is the layer that contains the page frame. Right-click Layer 1, choose Rename, and change the name to “Page Frame.”
Drag the Page Frame layer to the bottom of the list, and then click the pen icon to lock the layer.
Now, click the New Layer button at the bottom of the Object Manager to create a new layer. Rename the new layer as “Text”. Repeat the process to create a third layer with the name “Bitmaps”. Always work on the corresponding layer: text on the Text layer, graphics on the Bitmaps layer.
Shape and color
In your document, draw a freehand circle with the Freehand tool. Choose the Shape tool, and drag at the nodes to create your spiral shape. To add more nodes, double-click the line; to delete a node, double-click the respective node.
The next step is to fill with color the closed shape you have created. Double-click the Fill Color icon in the lower-right corner of the workspace to open the Uniform Fill dialog box. Click the Palettes tab, and choose PANTONE® 470 C from the Name palette list.
PANTONE colors allow for any number of gradations or tints. To change the tint, move the Tint slider in the Uniform Fill dialog box. The value should not be less than 10%; values of less than 10% are normally not visible in the printed output.
Your shape is now filled with color. To remove the outline, choose None from the Outline Width list box on the property bar.
We have created the basic shape for the logo, and we will use this shape as a master design for all other shapes. We now duplicate the basic shape by clicking it and choosing Edit ` Duplicate. You can resize and rotate the duplicates and then place them on different pages of the invitation.
Layout
When doing the page layout, be careful not to place your text too close to the margin, because the service bureau could truncate the text when cropping the document to the format of the invitation.
Place a copy of the spiral shape on the square. With the spiral shape selected, choose Arrange ` Order ` To Front of Page. In the default CMYK palette, choose White. The white shape appears on top of the colored square. The final shapes appear as shown below.
Left to right: the shapes for the interior, back, and front of the folded invitation
Text
After placing your heading in the text frame, draw another frame just below the first one, and add your most important information. Now, wrap the text a little, so that the left margin follows a curve. To do this, draw an ellipse, and position the ellipse where you want the text to wrap.
For additional effect, you can add an outline to the text instead of a fill color.
Choose None for the Fill color (click the X on the top of the color palette). Double-click the Outline Color swatch in the lower-right corner of the workspace to open the Outline Pen dialog box. Type a width of 0.7 mm. In the Outline Pen dialog box, open the Color picker, and click Other to open the Select Color dialog box. Click the Palettes tab, and choose your PANTONE color. Click OK to close each dialog box.
Preparation for service bureau
Publish to PDF Settings dialog box. Click the Objects tab, and choose the option Export All Text As Curves. Click the Prepress tab, define the Bleed Limit, and enable Crop Marks. Click OK.
Now you are finished, and you can deliver your file to a service bureau.
